


A Place to Call Home

by pudding_bretzel



Series: Falsities and Regrets [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Bonding, Cooking, Gen, Impossibly and adorably tiny, Jason is a mutant, Language, Mostly Fluff, because Jason, just a small intermission with Jason and Alfred, little Jason is tiny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 09:44:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18962740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pudding_bretzel/pseuds/pudding_bretzel
Summary: Jason stared at the man for a short moment, before he let out a small giggle. He may hardly know the butler, but he could tell with certainty that hearing him swear sounded like listening to Batman talk with Harley Quinn’s voice. Plainly wrong.“Would you like to assist me, Master Jason?” Alfred asked.Or: A small insight into Jason's fourth week at the manor.





	A Place to Call Home

**Author's Note:**

> Alfred and tiny Jason is just the most wholesome thing there is!  
> This is just a small intermission showing the start of Jason's time living at the manor and introducing his mutation a bit more. The first part of the series doesn't have to be read, but it is recommended (mainly for the last sentence of this fic).  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Wayne manor was a strange place. That was the conclusion Jason reached at the end of his fourth week living in the manor.

The gigantic building was filled with rooms and hallways, more resembling a labyrinth than a house to live in if you asked Jason. He had spent a lot of his time, of which he suddenly had way too much and wandered the hallways to get to know the place better. In his opinion, there were way too many rooms, most of them being either empty or the little furniture left in some of them covered with white linens. 

The first time he’d wandered the manor alone after Wayne and Alfred had both been absent, hadn’t been one of his brightest moments. It had taken both of the adult men almost two hours to find him and them some to encourage him to come out of the closet he’d found refuge in. 

The one thing though that was even stranger than the manor itself, were its residents. As if it hadn’t been confusing enough to have the Batman himself buy him food, no, he also brought him to _Bruce fucking Wayne’s_ doorstep. And to top it off, the billionaire didn’t bat an eye at the sight of Jason and simply agreed to Batman’s request. 

It wasn’t like Jason saw much of the billionaire. The man seemed to spend most of his time either in his study or at work. 

The butler on the other hand was ever-present, always seeming to know where Jason was and what he was up too. Jason had already suspected surveillance cameras to be the old man’s secret, but he hadn’t been able to find any, yet. He wasn’t one to give up that easily. 

In the end, it was the continuous boredom and lack of something to entertain himself with that led him to pocking his head into the kitchen and watching the butler quietly work at the counter. With the older man’s back turned to Jason, it was no surprise that the eleven-year-old jumped five feet into the air, when the butler suddenly spoke.

“Can I help you, Master Jason?”

Quickly, Jason tried to cover his rather undignified yelp with a cough and trudged fully into the room. 

“No,” he answered in a small voice and hated the way he sounded immediately. He didn’t like the way he’d started to turn into a scared little boy again since he’d arrived here. Back on the streets, an answer like that could have cost him a great deal of trouble. He repeated his answer with a firmer voice and stayed put where he was standing, unwittingly starting to worry the hem of his new sweater. 

Alfred hummed where he was still dicing some vegetables on the counter. For a while nothing happened and the only sound disturbing the silence was the cutting of the knife. Jason was almost a hundred percent certain that the butler had quietly dismissed him and made to leave the kitchen once again to maybe find something else to occupy his time with, when suddenly Alfred made a step to the side. 

He didn’t stop cutting or turned to Jason, but the boy still understood the silent message. The butler was inviting him to join him in a subtle way that didn’t force Jason to verbally decline if he didn’t want to.

Accepting the invitation, Jason walked over to stand next to the butler. He curled his hands around the edge of the counter and rested his chin atop of them to better see, silently watching the other work. After a few seconds he broke the silence. 

“What’cha doin’?” he asked and turned his gaze towards the butler, moving his head so his cheek was resting on his hands instead. 

“I’m preparing a chicken stock for tomorrows dinner,” Alfred answered without halting in his movements. He deposited the cut carrots in a bowl and then started cutting something that looked like… a bigger white carrot? 

Ignoring the strange vegetable, Jason thought about what Alfred had just revealed to him. 

“You can make chicken stock yourself?” he asked the butler and hoped he didn’t sound too ignorant, because judging by the look Alfred shot him, the question came as a big surprise to the old man. But as fast as the look crossed his face, it was gone again, a small smile making his eyes wrinkle in the corners.

“Why of course, Master Jason. Everything you eat can be made by hand,” he explained, returning his attention to the cutting board and another vegetable Jason didn’t know. The butler probably hadn’t even realized he’d just rocked Jason’s world to its core. After a few minutes of contemplation, Jason spoke again.

“Even spaghetti?” 

“Even spaghetti,” Alfred confirmed casually.

Jason looked at the man with eyes so big he could almost feel them bug out of his head. “No fucking way,” he exclaimed with a volume he hadn’t intended and clearly, Alfred hadn’t expected either. 

The butler’s hand jerked slightly, slipping along the vegetable and making a skewed cut. A silence followed that slowly but surely managed to fill Jason with more and more dread the longer it continued. Jason shied a few steps away from the butler, looking down at the hem he started worrying once again. He waited with bated breath for the screaming and the punches that would no doubt follow.

He knew it had been a bad idea to seek out the butler in order to reduce his boredom, but in the past weeks he’d come to like the older man. He’d found Alfred’s calm appearance comforting and instilling a kind of safety he hadn’t felt since his mother died. Or since the meal he’d spent with Batman.

But to Jason's utter surprise, when the butler did finally open his mouth to speak again, it wasn’t to utter any of the words he had expected.

“Language, Master Jason. I do not condone such a foul language in this house,” he said and carried on with the cutting as if nothing happened. Then he pursued with another crinkling of his eyes, “but as you so eloquently stated, yes fucking way.”

Jason stared at the man for a short moment, before he let out a small giggle. He may hardly know the butler, but he could tell with certainty that hearing him swear sounded like listening to Batman talk with Harley Quinn’s voice. Plainly wrong.

“Would you like to assist me, Master Jason?” Alfred asked and before Jason knew what hit him, he found himself standing next to Alfred on top of a step stool, wearing an apron three times his size and cutting another one of those white carrots, which, as Alfred had kindly informed him, were called parsnip. 

Light chatter filled the kitchen soon enough and Jason found himself enamored listening to Alfred’s stories about his time as an actor and in turn telling the butler about all the stories he’d read with his mother. 

Engrossed in his task and their conversation, Jason missed the shadow looming in the doorway, watching them with a small smile. He also missed the way Alfred turned to said shadow, giving the man an approving nod, before answering another of Jason’s infinite questions.

***

Later that evening Jason found himself snuggled into the big bed in his room. And how crazy was that? He had his own room now, with his own bed, his own closet and even his own bathroom. He still wasn’t quite sure why he needed a bathroom all to himself, but he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

He hadn’t found the catch to all this yet and Alfred and Wayne had both reassured him many a time already, that he wouldn’t find one, because there wasn’t any. 

And the longer he stayed with the two of them, the more he believed them. 

He was still scared that he was making a big mistake, getting attached to these people and this new place, but when he opened his eyes again, late into the night and saw and felt the warm lights dancing around his bed, he couldn’t help but heave a relieved sigh. 

Because as much as his mutation was a mystery to him, there were some facts he knew for sure about it. 

First and most importantly, nobody was to know about it. It was the first and most important rule his mother had instilled in him. If people knew he was a mutant, they would take him away and hurt him, she’d always said. So, he kept it secret. Not even his own father knew he was a mutant, as far as Jason was aware.

Second, the little lights, or stars as his mother had fondly called them, were pretty to look at, but quite dangerous when touched by others. One time, after Jason had held one of the lights and had felt the soothing warmth coming off it, he’d demonstrated it to his mother in a cold winter night. But she hadn’t even been able to get close to touch them. She’d almost burnt her hand and it had taken almost seven months for her to convince and encourage him enough to let them out again. 

And lastly, as lacking as his control over them was, the lights only ever came out when he was safe. 

Looking at them now, coming out for the first time in almost three years and floating in the air around his bed in this new and strange place, he knew he didn’t have anything to fear here. 

He slipped his hand beneath his pillow, feeling for the small frame resting there. Pulling it out, he looked at the smiling face of his mother for a moment, before pulling it close and resting it against his chest, where he could feel his own steady heartbeat.

“Look mum, the stars are out,” he whispered and let the lights soothing sensation pull him down into sleep.


End file.
